


carthage

by liadan14



Series: harlequin au [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Class Differences, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Feudal AU, Lord Yusuf, M/M, Minor Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Romance Novel AU, Serf Nicky, historical accuracy what historical accuracy, no seriously the historical setting of this fic is window dressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:28:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26357233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liadan14/pseuds/liadan14
Summary: “A week!” Yusuf says dramatically. “A week there, and a week back, and all the days you would spend at home – how could I be parted with you for so long? I only just found you.”He is startled when Nicky laughs. (If, by startled, he means surprised, but also relentlessly charmed and weak in the knees.)Pressing his advantage, he slinks closer to smell the lavender soap on Nicky’s skin, feel the warmth of his body through their clothes. “Allow me to send word,” he murmurs against Nicky’s ear. “You can visit later, when I can bear to be parted from you.”Nicky sighs, and Yusuf will wonder for days after if it is in reluctance or in pleasure. “All right,” he agrees.(Or: No romance novel AU is complete without avoidable misunderstandings and class differences)
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: harlequin au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915123
Comments: 37
Kudos: 499





	carthage

Yusuf would like to pretend it is his skills in the bedroom that prevent Nicolò from remembering to contact his family for two full days. Sadly, he is aware that the more likely conclusion is that Nicky was simply afraid to ask.

Still, two days is far too short a time with such a beautiful, sweet man to be disheartened by Nicky’s continued insistence on their traditional roles as serf and lord. They have all the time in the world for Nicky to understand that Yusuf doesn’t care about that, and indeed only cares for him.

There is something to be said for the delicacy of Nicky’s flushed-pink skin, anyhow, when he asks quietly how long Yusuf intends him to stay. 

“Forever, of course,” Yusuf says cheerfully, still out of breath from fucking Nicolò into the mattress, hamstrings aching deliciously and libido more satisfied than it has perhaps ever been. “You’re mine, now, are you not?”

“Yes,” Nicky says, as gratifyingly quickly as he has since Yusuf asked for him the first time. “Yes, I am. It is only—well—”

“Hmm?” Yusuf will admit he is distracted, following the spread of pink down Nicky’s chest, across his stomach with his fingers.

“My family,” Nicky says – gasps, really. “If I am truly to stay here, I must – that is, I would like to let them know.”

“Of course,” Yusuf says, pulling away immediately. “Of course, immediately! We should have done something sooner!”

“Oh, it’s alright,” Nicky says. “I didn’t want you to _stop_. They won’t be expecting me back so soon anyway.”

It is only an hour or so until Yusuf has satisfactorily explored the full extent of Nicky’s skin and how pink he can make it become. On balance, still well in time to worry about sending word to his family.

“I should really go myself,” Nicky says, emerging from the washroom with his hair still dripping onto his cotton shirt. He has adapted marvelously to frequent baths, but Yusuf has yet to convince him to wear nicer clothes. “It is only a week’s ride.”

“A week!” Yusuf says dramatically. “A week there, and a week back, and all the days you would spend at home – how could I be parted with you for so long? I only just found you.”

He is startled when Nicky laughs. (If, by startled, he means surprised, but also relentlessly charmed and weak in the knees.)

Pressing his advantage, he slinks closer to smell the lavender soap on Nicky’s skin, feel the warmth of his body through their clothes. “Allow me to send word,” he murmurs against Nicky’s ear. “You can visit later, when I can bear to be parted from you.”

Nicky sighs, and Yusuf will wonder for days after if it is in reluctance or in pleasure. “All right,” he agrees.

-

Booker takes one look at the state Yusuf is in when he finally emerges from his bedchamber, hair a mess and bite marks trailing up his neck, and laughs his stupid French derriere off. “Oh, my friend,” he says, wiping tears from his eyes. “You are truly ridiculous.”

“Are you quite finished?” Yusuf asks. “Because I have a job for you. You know, because I employ you.”

“Mm,” Booker says. “Yes. You employ me. And as your master of treasury, it is my job to bring you pretty peasant boys, apparently.”

“Shut up, Sebastien,” Yusuf growls. “You know you did the right thing, bringing him to me.”

“Yes,” Booker says drily. “Because your adoptive sister is so likely to be kidnapped for ransom. I can just see her, a helpless damsel in distress. Surely, we must thank this boy for warning us and saving her from that fate.”

“At least I had the pleasure of soundly beating them before they could even try to touch me,” Quynh says from the doorway. “It was very courteous of your boy to warn me.”

“His name is Nicolò,” Yusuf says, “and he’s staying, and if you two are this terrible to him, you will be kicked from my table.”

“Aw,” Booker says to Quynh, taking a deep draught of his breakfast wine. “Look at him, all protective.”

“It would be sweet, if we didn’t know what he spent the last two days doing.” Quynh sits, legs spread wide, in the chair beside Booker’s, and helps herself to pastries and wine.

“I will not let you ruin my mood,” Yusuf tells them both severely. “Booker, I need you to send word to Nicolò’s family that he will be staying here.”

This sets Booker off into another round of teasing and laughter, but when Yusuf tells him he ought to do it _now_ , he gets to work.

Yusuf is ashamed to say he doesn’t think much more of it until Andromache appears at the castle gate, a fortnight hence. Beyond his usual duties, Yusuf has spent the past two weeks doing very little besides learning by heart every little noise his Nicolò makes in pleasure, be it in the pleasure of Yusuf’s cock riding tight against his prostate, in the pleasure of a warm bath after a long day, or in the pleasure of the first bite of a good meal. He has even managed to introduce Nicolò to his adoptive sister, who was kind enough to be thankful for Nicolò’s rescue and to not mention what exactly she had done to the two men who had threatened her.

Still, it is nothing but unwelcome when she pounds on the door to Yusuf’s bedchambers before the sun has even fully risen. Nicky is quicker to rise, but he is so unsure of himself still, so shy, that Yusuf struggle into consciousness, and also trousers, before opening the door.

“There’s a woman in the hall to see your Nicky,” Quynh says without preamble. “She’s absolutely feral.”

“You’re one to talk,” Joe mutters. “What time is it even?”

“Six,” Quynh says. “Hurry up, chop chop. Nicolò!” She calls in greeting, peering into the room around Yusuf’s shoulder before he can push her back. “Do you know an Andromache? She says you're her neighbor?”

Nicky, who is still naked between the sheets, goes wide-eyed, and Yusuf is sure he would be cursing if he were not quite so embarrassed.

“Leave,” he tells Quynh. “We’ll be there shortly.”

He does try his best to keep Nicky in their warm, lovely bed just a few minutes longer, but Nicky is adamant. “I’m worried she’ll attack Quynh,” he says, sounding utterly serious.

“Quynh will be fine,” Yusuf soothes, but Nicky is up and dressed before Yusuf can even try to suggest the silk shirts he had made just for Nicky but hasn’t quite worked Nicky up to trying on yet.

Andromache is tall and strong, with her hair chopped short unevenly. She’s wearing trousers, and she and Quynh are circling each other like two vultures about to vie for flesh. 

“Andy,” Nicky says from beside Yusuf, and then he pulls this fierce, strange woman into an embrace so intimate Yusuf would be jealous had Nicky not, two days ago, confessed to him that he had never been able to feel anything at all romantic for women, let alone the passion that had led him to bend Yusuf over the desk by his window and fuck him through two spine-melting orgasms.

“Nicky,” she responds, laughing, hugging him just as hard. “We were so worried for you.”

“I sent word, though—” Nicky begins.

“You sent a letter,” she says. “Or rather, your lord did.” She pulls away at last to eye Yusuf warily. He feels a little like an insect she’s debating whether or not to crush. “Unfortunately, with Nicky away, no one else in both our houses can read.”

“Oh,” Yusuf says, struck dumb. “I thought—”

“It’s my fault,” Nicky says immediately. “I assumed you would send someone to make an announcement, like you do for—”

Quynh snickers. “Ah yes. I’m sure the town crier would have loved to make that announcement. Attention, good sir. Your son will not be returned to you, he’s too busy sucking my Lord al-Kaysani’s—”

“ _Quynh_ ,” Yusuf says sharply.

“Is that how it is, Nicolò,” Andromache asks, except it is not a question and she is not looking at Nicky as she asks it. 

They both flush very red indeed, and Yusuf cannot help his eyes trailing over to Nicky, up to his lovely mouth and his beautiful eyes. 

“My lord,” Nicky says, and Yusuf wants to strangle someone. They’ve talked about this. “May I speak with Andromache? Alone?”

“Of course,” Yusuf says graciously. “You know you may do whatever you wish.” _This is your home now,_ he thinks. “Would you both care to join us for breakfast in an hour or two?”

Nicky smiles at him, and then drags his friend out the door by her elbow. 

Yusuf forces Quynh to spar with him, too nervous to care overly much that she beats him every time and refuses to use a wooden practice sword.

“He’s been warming your bed for weeks,” she points out, getting him in the side with the flat of her sword. “I don’t see what you could possibly have to worry about.”

“What if he doesn’t stay?” Yusuf asks.

She shrugs carelessly. “Why wouldn’t he stay? You can give him everything he’s ever wanted and all he has to do is bend over for it. Much better than being a serf.”

Abruptly, Yusuf lowers his sword. “Is that really what you think?” He asks. “Of me? Of him?”

Quynh pauses to study him, really study him. “Oh, Yusuf,” she says at length, unbearably kind. “I see how it is.”

Yusuf has to leave, then, or she’d see him cry, and he doesn’t need to be mocked for that as well.

By breakfast, Andromache and Nicolò seem to have settled into some sort of truce. Yusuf is unwilling to risk it by allowing Booker or Quynh to speak overly much. Instead, he asks about their village, and their schooling. “How is no one besides Nicky reads?” He asks. “Did you not all attend school?”

Andromache snorts derisively.

“School is only in the winter,” Nicky tells him. “We couldn’t be spared during either harvest season. And there is only one in the area. I walked five miles to get there.”

“Forty children in a room not fit for ten,” Andromache says. “Freezing cold on the way there, far too warm inside, and all the priest taught us was the catechism. I gave up after a month.”

“But you learned to read?” Yusuf presses Nicky, who looks down at his plate.

“Nicky learned to read,” Andromache says. “Nicky loves to read, odd duck that he is.”

“And what do you love to read?” Yusuf asks, wishing he could reach across the table and touch Nicky to make him feel more at ease.

“The bible,” Nicky says.

“And what else?”

Nicky looks up at him, then. “What else is there?” He asks.

Yusuf is momentarily struck entirely dumb, so he supposed he must be thankful when Quynh takes over the conversation, asks Andromache what it is she enjoys if she did not like school.

“Horses,” Andromache says.

“Oh really?” Quynh asks, in a tone Yusuf knows to be teasing that makes Andromache bristle. “Are you a decent rider, then?”

“Decent enough,” Andromache responds.

“Andy is the best rider I’ve ever seen,” Nicky interjects. “She’s the fastest in the whole town. Her father lets her dress however she likes and do whatever she wants so long as she keeps taking care of the horses.”

“Nicky,” Andromache says, sounding almost embarrassed.

“It’s true,” Nicky says, and finally a tiny smile graces his lips.

“Well,” Quynh says. “I suppose I shall have to show you the stables after breakfast, then.”

“Shall you,” Andromache says, another not-question.

Quynh only smiles.

-

Nicky had been so shocked at the sheer amount of books in Yusuf’s personal library that Yusuf is still kicking himself, hours later, for not having taken Nicky there sooner. The way he had turned to Yusuf with wide, excited eyes, had asked where he could possibly start when there was so much to choose from, how he had taken Yusuf’s suggestion in hand with such enthusiasm…

“Hey,” Booker says. “Focus. This was your idea. Tell me where we find the money and the time for all your serfs to send their free workforce to school all year round.”

Yusuf shrugs uncomfortably. “How much do they give me in tax every year?”

Booker calls him a number of uncharitable names in French, but Yusuf has always been far more interested in making his land beautiful and prosperous in natural bounty rather than filling his own coffers. He has never struggled for money, or for food. It is hard to conceptualize a life where one must do both. Besides, the everyday running of things is Booker’s job. 

“Ten percent, Yusuf. You take ten percent of what everyone grows for your table. As does every lord. Everywhere.”

Yusuf frowns. “Do we really eat that much?”

Booker rests his head against the table. “Of course not,” he says. “But it’s the way things are. Besides, if the Holy Roman Emperor shows up someday and wants to eat at your table for four months, you’ll need the extra food.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Yusuf says. “Why would he? He likes to pretend I don’t exist. The pope would have his head if he spent the winter with the one Muslim lord in the empire. The liege lords would have his crown if he spent the winter this far south.”

“It’s the principle,” Booker says wearily.

“The principle is stupid,” Yusuf says. “Let’s lower the grain tax and build some schools.”

“Your face is stupid,” Booker tells him. “This is a fool’s errand. You heard Andromache. The peasants think school is useless and they won’t go.”

“Give them a chance,” Yusuf argues. “With real teachers, not backwater priests? With real classrooms?”

“He’s right,” Nicky says from the doorway. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overhear.”

“No, no, please, come in, Nicolò,” Booker cries. “If you can talk him out of this, be my guest.”

“I will not be talked out of it,” Yusuf says. “I don’t want my subjects illiterate and starving.”

“We have been well-fed since you arrived,” Nicolò says. “You already return to us everything the castle doesn’t eat at the end of the year.”

Yusuf shakes his head. “The mind must be nourished as well as the body. One school for your entire area, Nicolò! I can do better.”

Nicky studies him slowly. “You are determined to do this thing,” he says.

“Very,” Yusuf says.

“Then make it a duty rather than a gift,” Nicky says.

Booker leans forward, interested.

“Excuse me?” Yusuf asks.

“Make it a duty you demand of your servants,” Nicky says. “That their children must learn. If it is a gift, they will ignore it. If it is a duty, they will complain about it, but after a year, it will be normal, and after ten, it will be custom.”

“Smart boy,” Booker says, pleased. “That, I can work with.”

He gathers up his papers and leaves before Yusuf can say much of anything.

“Well,” he sighs. “How are you liking the Aeneid?”

Nicky sits, draws his chair close to Yusuf’s. “Aeneas is an idiot,” he says.

Yusuf laughs. “Tell me more.”

“How could he leave Dido? She offers him everything he is lacking – a home for his people, wealth, children, peace, and he casts it aside for what?”

Yusuf shrugs. “Glory? Duty?”

Nicky shakes his head. “I think he misunderstands his duty.”

They are silent for a while, Yusuf breathing in the scent of Nicky. They have been apart for hours – longer than they have been since they met.

“What would you do, if you were Aeneas?” Nicky asks him eventually.

Yusuf laughs. “I am no Aeneas, haring off for new adventures. I haven’t been since I was a child. Are these lands not my home, this castle not my Carthage?”

“Are you Dido, then?” Nicky asks, smile playing around his lips, and oh, what a delight it is for Nicky to tease him at last.

“Certainly,” Yusuf says. “Just waiting to open my hearth and my heart to a worthy candidate.”

Nicky looks away. “Aeneas is not worthy.”

 _But you are,_ Yusuf longs to say, but he keeps his tongue in check so as not to scare Nicky away. Instead, he kisses Nicky, and allows his body to say what he is feeling when his mouth cannot.

They are late to dinner, and thus have the misfortune to enter just as Booker is explaining their day’s work to Andromache and Quynh. Andromache’s knuckles are clenched white around her wine glass. “Really,” she asks Nicky when they come in, disheveled and clearly fresh from the bath. “This is what you would do now? Buy a better life for us with your body?”

Nicky reels back, eyes wide. “Andy, I – Yusuf, that isn’t – ”

“I have heard enough,” Andromache declares, “and I am leaving. Nicky, I hope you know your family is expecting you.”

Nicky looks at Yusuf, and Yusuf realizes that his every expression so far has been guarded and withdrawn, with perhaps the exception of that very first night. Now, his eyes are entirely honest, and they are devastated.

“My heart,” Yusuf begins, but Nicky stops him. 

“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t, it’s just – cruel. And you are not a cruel man. Thank you for everything you have done for me. But I really ought to leave.”

“Why?” Spills out of Yusuf’s lips. “Why must you leave when I have only just found you? You said—you said you would be—”

“I said I would be yours,” Nicky agrees. “But I beg you, set me free of that promise. My heart can’t take it.”

“Is she right, then?” Yusuf asks. “Are you selling yourself to me to buy a better life for those you love? Because I would give you that at no cost, Nicolò, you must know—”

“No,” Nicky says, firmly, harshly. “I must know nothing, I know too much already, and I can never forget it. I’m sorry to go back on my word. And – thank you.”

He presses a soft, dry kiss to Yusuf’s mouth, and then he is out the door. The distant sound of hoofbeats on cobblestone alerts Yusuf that he must have left with Andromache. He is left behind, his hearth and his heart empty.

“You idiot,” Booker says, and Yusuf remembers that he is not alone. “Go after them.”

“What?” Yusuf asks dumbly.

“Go after them,” Booker repeats. “I may be a miserable asshole, but I’m not stupid, go after that boy or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“Go after them or I will,” Quynh adds, looking as if she has half a mind to do so anyway.

-

It takes Yusuf far too long to catch up with them. Nicky wasn’t kidding when he said Andromache was the fastest rider in town. By the time he had slung his sword around his hip, put on his armor and packed a satchel with a change of clothes and a waterskin, they were long gone. Perhaps they left the main road, took a route through the forest, but either way, even though he is no poor horseman himself, he reaches Nicky’s home a full day after Nicky has returned.

He is greeted first by an elderly man, puttering about by the vegetable patches in front of the house, a walking stick resting on the ground beside him.

“My lord,” the man says, and bows. 

“Good sir,” Yusuf says. “Please, don’t bow to me. Are you—that is, I am looking for Nicolò.”

“Ah,” the man says. “Come to take my son away again after all, eh?”

“I hope so,” Yusuf says. “If he will have me.”

“Hm.” Nicky’s father says and returns to his work. 

“I’m sorry,” Yusuf says. “I don’t mean to disrupt your family—”

“Ah, of course you do,” Nicky’s father says. “It was bound to happen. He’s been miserable ever since he got back. Tell me, what do you see in my Nicolò?”

“What don’t I see in him?” Yusuf asks, rhetorically. He has been thinking on the answer to this question for the better part of a week, and he is glad to give it. “He is so measured in his words, but beneath that, he has so many ideas, so many thoughts, and I would love to hear them all. He is kind, his first instinct has always been to help, and humble, he asks for nothing when he could have anything. I should like nothing better than for him to…to just open his eyes and see what he is worth.”

Nicky’s father pauses in his gardening. “And what is he worth?”

Yusuf could say _his weight in gold_. He could say _everything_. He would mean it. 

“I can see in your eyes that you don’t need me to tell you,” Yusuf says. “Will you let me help you with your work, instead?”

When Nicky returns, an hour later, he finds Yusuf up to his elbows in dirt, learning how to properly turn the soil.

“Yusuf,” he says, sounding strangled. “I thought I told you—”

“You told me many things,” Yusuf says peacefully. He finds he quite likes this, working with his hands. It reminds him the afternoon, not too long ago, when he wore Nicky out for long enough to sketch him, sleeping on top of the covers. He hadn’t dared show Nicky yet. Perhaps he will soon. “I can’t say I truly understood them. Why can you not be mine?”

Nicky looks briefly to his father.

“The man asked a question, Nicolò,” he says. “I think you could do much worse than to answer him.”

“Because you would not be mine in return,” Nicky says quietly. “And that, I could not take.”

Yusuf stares at him, aghast. “Where did you ever get that idea?” He asks.

“You’re a lord, Yusuf,” Nicky says tiredly. “I am not. Some day, you will have to marry and have children, and what will you do with me then? I can’t live my life waiting for the day you no longer want me. It would hurt too much, when I feel so strongly for you.”

Yusuf laughs.

“I truly thought you were not a cruel man,” Nicky begins to say, but Yusuf stops him with his lips crushed to Nicky’s.

“Nicky,” he says between joyful kisses that Nicky can’t seem to help but return. “Nicky, you are a fool, and you are beautiful. Do you truly think I could no longer want you? _Never_ , my love. I have nieces and nephews aplenty to inherit, what good would I be to a wife and child when my heart is so full of you?”

And then, after one last, long, perfect kiss, Yusuf tells him, “When I asked you to be mine, my heart, I meant that I would be yours.”

At last, at long last, Nicky relaxes in his hold, wraps his arms around Yusuf in return, and kisses him like a man dying of thirst and hoping to find a drop of water at the back of Yusuf’s mouth. He kisses Yusuf until Yusuf’s knees go weak, until Yusuf’s spine tingles with the warmth of Nicky’s hand resting at its base, until Yusuf is a hair’s breadth from loosening the ties on Nicky’s shirt to touch his skin, stopped only by the realization that he has left tracks of dirt all over Nicky’s clothes.

“Well,” Nicky’s father says. “I think that settles it, don’t you, Nicky?”

Nicky laughs shakily, only turning towards his father when he has let Yusuf wipe the tears from his eyes. “This is really alright, papa?”

“Ah, my boy,” he says. “You have seven brothers and sisters. Give me one less mouth to feed. Maybe invite them to come visit you at your fancy castle every now and again.”

“Whenever you want,” Yusuf says hurriedly. “You are always welcome in our home, you must be—”

Nicky stays him with a hand on his arm and a gentle look that speaks volumes. “Thank you, papa,” he says.

“Hm,” Nicky’s father says. “You ought to pack your things. I think I shall take a walk. Find your siblings, so they might say goodbye. A long walk.”

“Mind your knees,” Nicky says.

His father ruffles his hair as he walks off.

“Well,” Yusuf says to Nicky, bouncing on his heels. “Will you show me your house?”

Nicky looks over at him and Yusuf could fall to his knees at how open and unguarded his eyes are. “Only if you wash your hands first,” Nicky tells him. 

Yusuf hastens to obey, but he is not given a tour of the house. “It is only three rooms,” Nicky says, “and I only want to show you one of them.”

Yusuf would protest the impoliteness, but then he is being pushed against the closed door of the bedroom and Nicky is sinking to his knees in front of Yusuf. “Your sister joked,” he says, “but I have not done this to you yet.”

“You don’t have to,” Yusuf says, even as his ears buzz with how quickly his blood rushes south.

“You said you are mine,” Nicky says against Yusuf’s hip, pulling at his trousers.

Yusuf’s head hits the door with a heavy sound. It’s good that Yusuf is not going to be able to use his brain for the foreseeable future anyway. “I am,” he says. “I am, I am yours forever, Nicolò.”

“Then it follows that I can do as I please with you,” Nicky says, before drawing Yusuf’s suddenly throbbing erection into his mouth.

If this is what Nicky pleases, then Yusuf may as well die a happy man now.

His palms press flat against the door, trying to keep hold of reality before he simply floats away on the wave of pleasure threatening to pull him under as Nicky explores. His tongue is tentative and slow, and Yusuf recognizes the soft stroke of his tongue across the head of Yusuf’s cock as a trick he himself has used on Nicky more than once. 

“Oh,” he gasps. “Oh, Nicky.”

Nicky redoubles his efforts, sucking harder. He wraps his hand around the base of Yusuf’s cock, strokes up and down as he begins a bobbing motion on the head that makes Yusuf groan through clenched teeth, knuckles turning white in the effort to stay still. 

With a gentle hand, Nicky pets at his balls, strokes at the spot behind them, flicks his tongue across the head, and Yusuf sobs.

He draws away long enough to say, “I have missed you so, Yusuf.”

Were Yusuf in any kind of state to respond, he would remind Nicky whose bright idea it was to leave in the first place, but he can no more form complex thoughts than he can stem the swelling tide of orgasm, leaving his limbs heavy and his toes tingling and his legs shaking. All he can say are disjointed phrases, “I love you, please, my love, my heart, my moon, Nicky.”

Soon, it is just, “Nicky, Nicky, Nicky,” as he comes, pulsing out onto Nicky’s tongue, the sweetness of it singing through his very core. 

The buzzing in Yusuf’s ears is slow to recede, but once it does, he realizes that Nicky has barely moved, has his forehead pressed to Yusuf’s hip as his hips move in little circles.

Yusuf falls to the floor – his legs were useless anyway, made of rubber and due to collapse any second – and reaches for Nicky. “Let me,” he says, sounding fuck-drunk to his own ears. “Let me, please, I want to make you come.”

“You already did,” Nicky says through clenched teeth. “Just watching you—hearing you – “

His trousers are damp at the front, and when Yusuf feels with them, Nicky has shot off once already, sticky and damp in his underclothes, cock still throbbing against Yusuf’s fingers.

“Again?” Yusuf asks, and Nicky whimpers. 

Yusuf strokes him off quickly, harshly, and it is no time at all before he comes again, convulsing in Yusuf’s arms as he adds to the mess. 

“You will not run away from me again, my Aeneas?” Yusuf asks as they catch their breath.

“I suppose I deserve that,” Nicky says, nose wrinkling in distaste at the name. But his eyes are steady and true when he lifts Yusuf's hand to his mouth and whispers "I will never leave you again" as he presses kisses to it, and Yusuf falls in love with him all over again.

-

They have barely been on the road an hour when another horse trots up beside theirs.

“Headed our way?” Yusuf asks Andromache pleasantly.

“For a while,” she says, tone entirely blank.

“Well,” Yusuf says, trying not to let her see how he is smiling. “If you happen to be headed towards the castle, I am in dire need of a new horsemistress. My sister has been begging me for weeks.”

“Interesting,” Andromache allows.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, I got nothing. I just had to write this. I'm sorry. If you are interested in the historical backdrop of this, which makes no fucking sense and is terrible, the idea is that Yusuf is the liege lord of an area in northern italy which I'm calling Genoa but that's probably wrong. parts of northern italy belonged to the holy roman empire at one point in medieval history, which is where Booker gets off with his one-liner about the emperor staying for the winter (because the emperor had no fixed homestead and just kinda showed up somewhere and demanded he and his whole court be fed through the winter). And it was customary for serfs to give one-tenth of their yearly crops/earnings to the liege lord, but a lot of liege lords were Not Cool about it and demanded more. Yusuf being a lone Muslim lord in the holy roman empire is essentially a historical impossibility because non-christians weren't allowed in the feudal system but it would have been more likely in italy than in germany. anyway this whole setting is basically just an excuse for overwrought drama I don't know why I care so much.
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://bewires.tumblr.com)


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